Behind the Silver Curtain

"A thousand years in Your eyes, O Lord,
are like yesterday that has passed"

I saw in a dream that I had died the death I dream of. My soul was extinguished in my body as a lamp is extinguished whose oil is spent and whose light melts away, without sound or motion. It ascended to its Creator, free and rejoicing, and it was able to stand before the Lord of the Throne and address Him imploringly: "Since human life ends in the calamity of death, could this ending not come about in some way other than the familiar dramatic one? Could man not die as the flowers die, without the torment of illness and the pain of the death agony?"

The Creator, exalted be He, toyed with His long white beard and said: "You are of an unwarlike people that has never grown used to bearing pain patiently."

My soul answered: "True, I am of a people that has not plunged into the tumult of wars; but it has endured the pain of servitude and borne it patiently for a long time without revolting. And in my view it is man's duty to revolt against pain, whatever its kind, bodily or spiritual."

My soul pursued the argument, saying: "Pain is useful when it stirs one to struggle. But of what use is the pain of the sick man and the dying?"

The Creator answered: "The sick man's pain is a spur to him and to others to fight his disease. We have left man the freedom to strive, and We have smoothed for him the ways of fighting disease and death; but he diverts himself from that by creating the causes of death."

My soul went back to floating on the wings of the ether. Then it occurred to it to pass through the silver curtain and descend to where it had left my body laid out on the wooden bed that stood in the bedroom. It found it displayed in the courtyard of the house, with the women around it wrapped in black, seated, wailing and beating their hands and their breasts. It peered into the sallow, altered faces and found that some were feigning grief and tears, while others drew them from the atmosphere of dread that reigned over the place. It wanted to address the assembled crowd, saying: "How fierce is your passion for display, O people! You exhibit your dead as you exhibit the furniture of your houses... Your passion for displaying your tears matches your passion for displaying your clothes, and keeps pace with your eagerness to hide your faults and to conceal your knowledge and your ages! Wretched indeed is the double life you live!"

But no one was prepared to listen. Some of the women were busy inspecting the throngs of mourners, men and women, who came pouring into the place. Another group was sunk in talk, inquiring after the causes of death, the size of the estate and how it would be divided, or they took up local news that had nothing to do with the matter. And when certain women entered who were bound to the deceased by the tie of blood, the voices of the wailers and the reciters of dirges rose; sobbing and weeping and the heaving of sighs followed one upon another, until the courtyard turned into something like a battlefield after the fight, strewn with severed limbs, loud with groans, with the spirits of the dead of ages past looking down upon it from every side.

"Why weep?" said my soul, addressing the women. "If you believe in a life after death — and that is what your prayers and your funerals signify — then it is better for you to hold back your tears and to show joy. For the departed, who was without doubt one of the faithful, has passed from the abode of perishing to an abode of permanence, from the vale of tears to the paradise of eternity. And if faith fails you, then joy is still the more fitting for you, for death is rest, and a release from the halter of appetites and from the evils of this world and its diseases. You long for children and make vows for their sake; and what do you know of the number of young men and girls who — once they had tasted life — wished they had never been born. How many of those who are born, whose nonexistence might be reckoned better than their existence!"

But my soul's whispers were lost in the stifling air that hung over the assembled crowd. My soul fled from a place it had thought a very hell. And it went soaring through the expanses of space until certain dense woodlands appeared to it, far from the towns and the villages. Through the trees it glimpsed an ibex lying prostrate at the trunk of a tree, breathing out its last breaths to scatter on the air. It was perishing as the grasses perish and the leaves fall. There it was, awaiting its return to its mother the earth, to enrich her with its remains, so that upon its decomposing roots trees and flowers of wonderful aspect might spring up. There it was, fading away without a murmur or a stir, joining the still nature that creates moving nature, renews it, and makes it grow. This calm natural scene pleased my soul, and it returned to where it had left the clamoring women writhing in agitation and outcry, wishing to tell them what it had seen and to give them a lesson in largeness of heart. But what should startle it but a procession forming, and a crowd gathering, and lamps being lit, and candles raised. And priests with frozen stares, in drooping black vestments, swaying along as they chanted in monotonous, mournful voices that struck terror into souls. And the bier swaying behind them, tottering and unsteady, the people around it half-terrified, anxiety and constriction on their faces, as though they walked in the procession of the Day of Judgment.

My soul turned its face away in pain and cried out to the people in a voice they did not hear: "Have done with these traditional displays, O people! You have been enslaved by worn-out customs, the worst of which is the passion for making things terrible, for magnifying events, and for casting dread into souls. You surround the happenings that occur every day with a frame of horror woven by your imagination, as though it pleased you to play upon the minds of the simple and to exploit their illusions and their emotions. O you self-appointed leaders, who have set yourselves up as guardians of superstitions and keepers of delusions! When will the reformer come who with his pickax will demolish your strongholds and strip from men's minds the veils of ignorance and stupidity!"

And my soul's voice was lost in the ether when there rose the voice of a young orator who stood in the crowd, preaching and eulogizing, rolling out grand, ringing phrases that charmed the listeners' ears and blinded them to their trite, hollow meanings.

My soul was on the point of silencing him, and drew near to lay its invisible fingers upon his mouth. But seeing the air around him charged, it feared to bring about what might come to no good end.

And my soul returned to God, this time downcast and sorrowful. He had just finished going through papers that surrounded Him in heaps. But His face was serene as He wrote upon one of the files: "This project will be ready in its own good time."